I really have to get on with my day job, so I’m going to try to avoid the blogging itch as much as possible over the next while. But I just can’t stop myself over the latest GOP flirtation with goldbuggery.
As you probably have heard, the Serious, Bold, Sober Party of Fiscal Discipline™ has at least in draft platform language asserted that it is the policy of the Republican party to explore the idea of restoring the US currency to the gold standard.
Y’all can stop laughing — or crying– now.
Paul Ryan, that intellectual powerhouse, the brilliant force that so-kicks-liberal-ass-in-the-gym-and-in-the-head-so-there is on board. He might try to defend himself by saying that he supports basing US currency not on gold per se, but on a basket of commodities.
But as Yglesias points out, that’s a distinction without a difference. And it’s not even really true. Dave Weigel notes that Ryan himself locates the root of his thoughts on currency to yet one more bit of Ayn Rand undigestible prose, the Francisco d’Anconia speech in which Rand’s “character”* declares
“It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor – your claim upon the energy of the men who produce.”
Yup. Not just a gold standard, but, as Krugman marvels, a gold coinage.